Saturday, 12 December 2009

JiM group welcome Fletcher Matandika of Joy to the World Ministries

'JiM', the group recently formed at Oban High School to raise awareness and funds for the work in Malawi of former OHS Librarian Jayne Powers, recently welcomed a special visitor.

Rev. Fletcher Matandika, the founder of Joy to the World Ministries, the charity Jayne works with in Malawi, spent the day at Oban High School.

He gave 'JiM' an update on the work of the charity with a deeper insight into the particular work that Jayne is involved in. He particularly inspired the group with his vision to build a new high school in the Dzuwa area, a region which is steadily building in confidence, identity and pride as a community.

Fletcher also spent time sharing the vision of Joy to the World with the high school Senior Leadership Team, and also took the opportunity to speak with S2 pupils in the RME department on suffering and faith, as well as discussing micro financing and community cohesion with S4 geography pupils.

As Fletcher was hot-footing it straight from Scotland to Malawi, 'JiM' were able to ask him to take some of the many kindly donated soft toys and gifts from OHS pupils and staff to Jayne in Kasungu for distribution to children she knows.

A big thank you goes to Fletcher for helping us with this. We look forward to seeing Fletcher in the future in Oban, or even one day in Malawi!

Sunday, 6 December 2009

Special day at Club H2O

At the most recent meeting of Club H2O, the inter-generational aspect of Hope 2 Oban, young and not-so-young came together to listen and talk.

As part of the OHS Pathways Programme, S6 Student, Vicky Cunliffe, has been coordinating a project on public speaking with S2 pupils. The project culminated last Thursday with 8 S2 pupils making presentations to the elderly about their heroes. These included Sean Connery, Yoda, Michael Schumacher, Rowan Atkinson, Colin McRae and Wiliam Shakespeare.

It was a doubly-special time as, on the day, a local business presented Hope 2 Oban with a donation of £1000 towards the ongoing Christian witness and work of H2O within the Oban area community. Shown in the photo above are H2O Youth worker, Denise Glancy, alongside pupils from Oban High School, John, from Club H2O and the local donor.

H2O Coordinate Oban High School 'Faith Perspectives' conference for S6 Students

Around 60 S6 students from Oban High School took part in last Friday's conference falls under the banner of 'Religious Observance', held for the first time at the Scottish Association of Marine Science, SAMS, at nearby Dunstaffnage.

11 invited guests from all over Scotland provided 7 workshops, giving students the opportunity to meet with folks from a variety of faith pespectives including Baha'i, Muslim, Jewish and Christians from a variety of traditions and backgrounds. We also ran an inter-faith workshop. Our Humanist representative had to call off due to ill health on the day, a we wish Mandy a speedy recovery.

Further to our survey of students way back in June, the outcomes directed that we provide as many faith persectives as we could source and that all attending wanted to experience all workshops. With the help of the S6 planning group, and further to asking the students what questions they would like to ask invited guests, the wide and varying list was whittled down to:-

- Is it important to have a faith/ spirituality perspective? Why?

- How did you find faith/ God/ your spirituality?

- What are your views on other faiths, beliefs?

- How are your lifestyle and faith perspective related?

Students therefore experienced a very full day, which included 7 workshops, a time of reflection and an opportunity to quiz the hosts and to take part in a full-on feedback session.

All-in-all a very busy, challenging and worthwhile day.

A great big thank you to all who took part, particularly workshop hosts and SAMS.